Tom Hall

Tom Hall is a family lawyer in West Los Angeles. He is from Boston, and was raised in Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Quakers) to think that religion was a progressive force. During the Vietnam War, he organized draft counseling centers and worked with groups training people in techniques for disciplined nonviolent demonstrating. After the war, he became just another yuppie working to make a comfortable life. The Bush administration shocked him back into social concerns. Now he’s working to see that the Obama administration lives up to its progressive promises. Tom can be reached at ProgBlog@aol.com

Tom Hall: Seventy years ago, the hubris of generals and politicians pushed us into operation Market Garden and into the Battle of the Bulge, battles born of our preference for self-adulation over accurate analysis. Today, our leaders in Congress are promising to undertake the same decisions, with an eagerness to sacrifice the same young soldiers.

Tom Hall: For all the blather about Moslem terrorist threats, the reality is that fundagelical “christians” are the ones who keep murdering women’s health care providers and blowing up buildings and mailing letters full of anthrax and ricin.

Tom Hall: If we look at the larger picture, what’s really happening here is that U.S. taxpayers are funding both (or all) sides of these civil wars, our war materiel suppliers are making out like bandits, and now we are being asked to, once again, ship our young men and women to be cannon fodder to feed the war industrial machine.

Tom Hall: For all the fears that Hobby Lobby will open the door to new claims by people who want to use religious excuses to discriminate, it appears equally clear that the decision writes finality to arguments about marriage equality.

Tom Hall: There is some humor in watching Tea Bag Republican politicians fall all over themselves to condemn President Obama for refusing to commit the U.S. to jump into a civil war on the side currently dominated by al Qaeda and Hamas fighters.

Tom Hall: Their effort to demonize Shariah law is part of a larger effort to identify and exploit scapegoats. To them, anything Islamic should be exploited the way that Feminazis, Socialists, Homo Activists, Acorn and the New Black Panthers should be exploited.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Margo McCall: There’s increasing evidence that adopting a plant-based diet is better for human health, the planet, and of course for the more than 9 billion animals that are killed for consumption each year in the U.S alone.